St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1887-06-19
HOWELLS' BOYHOOD.
The Story Of the Homesick Little
Ppinfap

Printer.
w. ID. HOwells in Youths Compan-
on: / cannot remember now
whether it was early spring after our
first winter in the log cabin, or in the
early part of the second winter, which
found us still there, that it was vastly
thought fit l should leave these vain
delights and go to earn some money
in printing office in x. l was,
though so young, a good cOmpoSitOr,
swift and clean, and when the foreman
OF the printing office appeared one day
at cur cabin, and asked if l could come
and take the place of delinquent hand,
there was no question with any one but
myself that must go. For me, terri
BILE inconsistencies fell instantly upon
me-a inconsistencies that already, in the
mere prospect of absence, pierced my
heart, and filled my throat, and blinded
me with tears.
The foreman wanted me to go back
with him in his buggy, but days grace
was granted me, and then my older
brother took me to X, where he was
to meet my father at the railroad station
on his return from Cincinnati. 1t had
been showing, in the soft Southern Ohio
fashion, but the clouds had broken
away and the evening fell in clear
sky, apple-green along the horizon, as
we drove on. This color of the sky
the despair that then filled my soul,
and which [ was constantly
swallowing down with great gulpS.
We jOked, and got some miserable
laughter out of the efforts of the horse
to free himself from the snow that
balled in his hoofs, but | suffered all the
time i'll the anguish of inconsistencies
that now seems incredible. All the
time had every fact of the cabin life
before me; what each of the children
was doing, especially the younger ones,
and what, above all, my mother was
doing, and how at every moment she
was looking; l saw the wretched little
phantasm of myself moving about there.
The editor to whom my brother deliv-
cred me over could not conceive of me
as tragedy; he received me as if |
were the mereSt commonplace, and de-
livered me i'll turn to the good man with
whom was to board. There were half
a dozen school girls boarding there, too,
and their gayety when they came in
added to my desolatiOn.
The man said supper was about ready
and he reckOned | would get something
to eat if | looked out for myself. Upon
reflection, | answered that thought l
did not want any supper, and that |
must go to find my brother, whom | had
to tell something. | found him at the
station and told him / was going home
with him. He tried to reason with me,
or rather with my frenzy of hOmesick-
ness; and l agreed to leave the question
open till my father came; but in my own
mind it was closed.
My father suggested, however, some
thing that had not occurred to either of
US; we should both stay. This seemed
possible for me; but not at that board
ing hOuSe-not within the sound of the
laughter of those girls! We went to
the hotel, where we had beefsteak and
ham and eggs and hot biscuit every
morning for breakfast, and where we
paid 81 apiece for the week we staid.
At the end of this time the editor had
found another hand, and we went home,
where l was welcomed as from years
absence.
Again l was called to suffer this trial
the chief trial of my boyhood-but it
came in a milder form, and was light
ened to me not only by the experience
of survival from it, but by various cir
This time | went to D.,
where one OF my uncleS was still living,
and he somehow learned the misery l
was III, and babe me come and stay with
him while remained in D.. I was
very fond of him and of the gentle crea-
ture, his wife, who stood to me for all
that was naturally and convedtiOnally
refined, type of gracious loneliness
and worldly splendOr.
They had an only child, to whom her
Cousins presence in the house was
joy. Over them all hung the
shadow of fragile health, and l look
back at them through the halo of their
early death; but the remembrance can
not make them kinder than they really
were. With all that l was homeSick
age of our log cabin before my eyes. and
awOke with my heart like lead in nv
breast.
l did not see how could get through
the day, and l began it with miserable
tears. l had found that by drinking a
good deal of water at my meals could
keep down the SobS for the time being.
and [ practiced this device to the sur
prise and alarm of my relatives, who
were troubled with the spectacle of nv
unnatural thirst
Sometimes / left the table and ran out
for burst of tears behind the house:
every night after dark | cried there
alone. But | could not wholly hide my
suffering, and | suppose that after
awhile the sight of it became intolerable.
At any rate, blessed evening came.
when, returning from work, l found my
brother waiting for me at my uncle's
house; and the next morning we set out
for home in the keen silent dark before
the November dawn.
We were both mounted on the italic-
footed mare, behind my brother with
my arms around him to keep on better.
and so we rode out of the sleeping town
md into the lifting shadow of the
woods. They might have swarmed with |
ghosts or Indians, l should not have
cared; was going home.
By-and-by, as we rode on, the birds
began to call one another from their
ireams;. the quails whistled from
,lamored from the tops s' of the the
1eadening. The squirrels raced along
The fence rails, and in the woods they
stopped halfway up the holes to bark |
at us; the jays Strutted down the shelly |
ing branches to offer us passing insult |
and defiance.
Presently, at a little clearing, we
came to log cabin; the blue smoke |
,urled from its chimney, and through |
the closed door came the soft, low hum
Of spinning-wheel. The red and yell |
low leaves, heavy with the cold dew, |
1ripped round us; and l was pro- |
foundry at peace. The homesick will |
how it was that l was as if |
saved from death.
AT last we crossed the tail-race from
The island and turned up, not at the old |
log cabin, but at the front door of the
new house. The family had fitted dur
ing my absence, and now they all burst
out upon me in oXultant welcome and |
my mother caught me to her heart. !
Doubtless she knew that it would have
been better for me to have conquered
myself; but my defeat was dearer to her
han my triumph could have been. She
made me her honored guest; l had the
best place at the table, the tenderest bit
If steak. the richest CUP of her golden